Anniversary of Norway massacre: Are there limits to free speech?

Rescue workers take a body from a ferry boat at the lake shore opposite to the Utoya island, Norway, Sunday, July 24, 2011. Picture: AP Photo/Frank Augstein

As Norway commemorates the 77 people murdered by a lone gunman on this day in 2011, it is a good time to look again at how we talk about those responsible for acts of terror.

Are we causing even more harm by repeating a mass-murderer’s name and explaining his twisted motivation each time an anniversary comes around? After all, that was the precise aim of the right-wing Norwegian extremist who murdered eight people in a bomb attack in Oslo and then went on to shoot dead 69 young people at a summer political camp on the island of Utøya on 22 July 2011.